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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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081489
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08148900.017
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1990-09-17
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LIVING, Page 80Come On In, The Water's Fine!Americans try new ways to make a splash and keep coolBy Nancy Gibbs
Alexander the Great, while laying siege to ancient cities, is
said to have filled 30 trenches with snow and covered them with
branches in order to provide a refreshing oasis for his ladies. No
less resourceful was Emperor Nero, who reputedly dispatched runners
up into the mountains to fetch ice, which he flavored with fruits
and honey to make the original snow cone. And it is likely that
Marco Polo, during his travels in the Far East, discovered sherbet.
For even the most sweet-tempered soul, August is a test of
patience and ingenuity, when office workers lunch by a fountain and
hope for a strong wind. Shoppers browse through Chicago's Hammacher
Schlemmer, lured by inflatable water shoes (pontoons for the feet),
or a solar-powered ventilated golf cap, or, for sun worshipers who
don't know any better, a sun-tracking beach chair that rotates 360
degrees for maximum exposure. For those who prefer refrigeration
to recreation, swank, Dallas-based Neiman Marcus is prepared to
cater a private picnic for customers in its fur vault, which is
kept at a constant 40 degrees F.
Above all, people need to be watered in August, and any
entrepreneur with a splashy way to make waves should have no
trouble staying afloat. Who, for example, could resist the Dive-In
Movies at Raging Waters park in San Dimas, Calif.? There, up to 500
moviegoers can drift through feature films while floating in inner
tubes around an 81-ft. by 193-ft. pool. High-powered fans
underwater create gently rolling waves, which may not suffice to
soothe the bathers as they watch, typically, Jaws, Creature from
the Black Lagoon (this in 3-D) or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the
Sea. Movies are free after patrons pay a $14.95 general-admission
fee, $9.50 after 5 p.m. "This is the prototypical Southern
California experience," says park spokesman Stan Friedman. "It
combines the beach, swimming and Hollywood all in one place."
Down South, the heirs of the soap-obsessed Walt Disney have
raised bathing to an art form. In Florida, Walt Disney World has
just opened Typhoon Lagoon, the last splash in water theme parks.
Visitors can paddle in a wave pool the size of 2 1/2 football
fields, which sports computer-controlled water chambers that empty
out in a torrent of 4-ft. waves simulating ocean surf. High above
on Mount May Day teeters a replica of a wrecked fishing boat that
periodically spouts a spray of water. In keeping with the typhoon
motif, one artfully ramshackle building has a motorboat impaled on
the roof.
California's Disneyland has just opened Splash Mountain, which
may be the most high-tech, high-thrill, fastest, longest, tallest
log-flume ride in the world. Two thousand passengers an hour can
shriek through the swirling path down the watery mountain, at
speeds of up to 40 m.p.h. Serenading them along the way are Br'er
Rabbit, Br'er Bear and other characters from Disney's 1946 partly
animated film Song of the South. Since Splash Mountain opened July
18, visitors have typically waited an hour and a half for the
10-min. ride.
A 6-ft. wave was once hard to find in the middle of Wisconsin--
but not anymore. The new Big Kahuna Wave Pool is luring scorched
Midwesterners to Noah's Ark Water Park, where 600-h.p. air
compressors send waves rolling from one end of the 600-ft. pool to
the other. The waves are kept to a modest 3 ft. during the busiest
hours of the day, but visitors who arrive early enough after the
9 a.m. opening can play in the giants.
When it comes to getting and staying wet, there are still, of
course, plenty of purists who have no use for oversize whirlpool
baths and plastic logs. "You never swam till ya swam in a quarry,"
declares Marilyn Woodruff, owner for the past 22 years of
Clearwater Quarry near Toledo. Abandoned as a limestone mine around
the turn of the century, Clearwater soaks almost two acres, roughly
30 ft. deep. At nearby Salisbury Quarry, 65 ft. at its deepest,
half the swimmers are scuba divers. They come to rummage around the
sunken hulks -- eight fishing trawlers, as well as buses and vans.
When it comes to riding the waves, surfboards may forever be
the favorite vehicle in Malibu, but Arizonans prefer inner tubes.
The car or truck tubes rent for $6.25 a day at the Salt River
recreation area outside Phoenix. Somewhat more economically, up at
the Heady-Ashburn cattle ranch in Arizona's Sonoran Desert, Sonny
and Nancy McCuistion and their two hired hands head for the cow
troughs. "The cows are a little surprised at first, but they're
gentle," says Nancy. "Of course when you get out, it feels funny
riding back in wet Levi's."
It is even possible to be wet and hip at the same time. In
Manhattan's East Village, best explored with a bodyguard, the
trendies dine at Cave Canem, a converted Turkish bathhouse serving
a Roman feast, where the dance floor abuts a 7-ft. by 9-ft. pool.
Summer Tuesdays and Thursdays are swimming nights. Says Owner Hayne
Suthon, as she wrings out her hair in a towel: "It's the only place
you can go swimming in New York without cement shoes and garbage
bags." And the wildlife is spectacular.
-- Elaine Lafferty/Los Angeles, with other bureaus